"American Caesar", by William Manchester

This 709-page biography of General Douglas MacArthur is a monumental work. Manchester covers his subject's entire life in great detail, and does it from a neutral perspective; that is, he describes MacArthur's military genius and heroism, but also doesn't shy away from documenting his failures.

What interests me the most is the final period of his life, after Truman recalled him to the States on April 11, 1951. Truman's action was hugely unpopular with the American public. Letters and telegrams to the White House ran twenty to one against Truman. Interestingly, however, a survey of journalists covering the story found that more than six to one thought that the president's action was justified. In other words, those who knew the most about the situation and understood the reasons for the firing, approved of it. Truman's approval rating, however, plunged to a low of 23%, and remained very low throughout the remainder of his presidency.

Upon his return to this country, MacArthur addressed a joint session of Congress. He was interrupted by applause 30 times in his 34-minute address. One representative shouted out, "We heard God speak here today. God in the flesh, the voice of God!" "Life" magazine reported that the audience was "magnetized by the vibrant voice, the dramatic rhetoric and the Olympian personality of the most controversial military hero of our times". Manchester says he was "lucid, forceful, dignified, and eloquent; though he clearly thought his message urgent, his delivery was unhurried and rhythmic. All his life had been a preparation for this moment."

What followed was a joint inquiry by the Senate Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees, beginning on May 3, 1951. The most significant exchange during these hearings occurred when a Senator asked MacArthur a question about how we would go about winning a world war. The general replied "That doesn't happen to be my responsibility, Senator. My responsibilites were in the Pacific." This exposed the weakness in MacArthur's diffferences with the Truman administration. Here MacArthur is admitting that it is up to the president, his cabinet, and the Joint Chiefs to determine overall U.S. foreign policy. Ignoring this reality is what got MacArthur fired.

Following MacArthur's testimony, the administration took seven weeks to methodically rebut MacArthur's position. Manchester says that "One by one, officers who admired MacArthur seated themselves before the Senators and sadly rejected his program for victory." The author goes on to state that "Against this array of fact and expertise, the general's Republican defenders had little to offer but a welter of party loyalty and conservative intuition."

After the hearings, MacArthur spent a full year "crisscrossing the U.S. in a one-man drive to arouse the country to what he regarded as its peril." But the result of all this speech-making was quite instructive. What happened was that MacArthur's star gradually dimmed, as people got tired of his constant bad-mouthing of Truman and the Truman administration. People were interested in the future, while all MacArthur was doing was re-litigating past grievances. Manchester says that "each time he took a swipe at Truman he descended a little". The crowds gradually dwindled, civic leaders started walking out of his speeches, and local leaders started calling him a "demagogue".

After the 1952 election, President-elect Eisenhower met with MacArthur to hear his views. Ike heard him out, but ignored the advice, which Manchester says was "as unwelcome to the new administration as it had been to the old. Dulles, like Acheson, was a believer in limited wars. The old General, one feels, had become an embarrassment to the leaders of both parties, an unwelcome reminder of the gallant past, now lost forever, in which intolerable differences between great nations could be resolved by the sword".

MacArthur lived out his life in a New York hotel, and was never again a force in American political life. Before his death in 1964, he met with first Kennedy and later with Johnson, warning them both to stay out of Indochina. This advice should have been listened to, as MacArthur was the foremost U.S. expert on the Oriental mind, but instead it was ignored.

MacArthur gets very high marks for rebuilding Japan during the five years he was in charge of the occupation. He was extremely popular in Japan; after his recall, Japan's foreign minister said that MacArthur's accomoplishments during the occupation were "one of the marvels of history. It is he who has salvaged our nation from post-surrender confusion and prostration, and steered the country on the road to reconstruction. It is he who has firmly planted democracy in all segments of our society. It is he who has paved the way for a peace settlement. No wonder he is looked upon by all our people with the profoundest veneration and affection. I have no words to convey the regret of our naton to see him leave."

The two great Tokyo daily newspapers joined in the praise. One said that "MacArthur's dismissal is the greatest shock since the end of the war. He dealt with the Japanese people not as a conqueror but a great reformer. He was a noble political missionary. What he gave us was not material aid and democratic reform alone, but a new way of life, the freedom and dignity of the individual. The other paper wrote that "Japan's recovery must be attributed solely to his guidance. We feel as if we had lost a kind and loving father."

I think that part of why MacArthur's star faded so precipitously during 1952 is that his speeches, increaingly consisting of deranged right-wing rants, were so clearly at odds with his humane and tolerant approach to the administration of Japan. The American electorate may not be very sohisticated or knowledgeable, but people can spot a phony when they see one. MacArthur's experience is eerily similar to Trump's in this regard, as Trump was a pro-choice Democrat before he got into politics and started posturing as an anti-abortion, right-wing demagogue. Trump is known to have contributed seven times to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaigns, and twice to Kamala Harris's Senate campaign.

A clear example of MacArthur's fall from grace was the spectacular failure of his keynote address at the 1952 Republican convention. Manchester says that it was "probably the worst speech of his career--banal and strident in content, wretchedly delivered, a bungling of his chance to become a dark horse...Halfway through the delegates began babbling so loudly among themselves that he could scarcely be heard." C. L. Sulzberger wrote that "He said nothing but sheer baloney. One could feel the electricity gradually running out of the room. I think he cooked his own goose and didn't do much to help Taft."

Sarah Palin is a recent example of someone whose star once burned bright, but who has since faded into insignificance. After her defeat in the 2008 VP election, she resigned her governorship the next year, citing a slew of ethical complaints against her. She tried her hand as a FOX analyst, but got cut loose at the end of her contract period, as the network came to realize that she had nothing worthwhile to say.

In 2017 Palin filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times for accusing her of "political incitement" in the run-up to the 2011 shooting of Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The case finally came to trial earlier this year, and the jury unanimously found against her. Her case was so weak that the Judge announced he was going to dismiss it, regardless of how the jury found.

This year Palin ran for Congress from Alaska, and couldn't even defeat a Democrat! In bright red Alaska! The man hired to prep Palin for her VP debate with Joe Biden in 2008 was recently interviewed on one of the news networks. He said that when he asked Palin what her position on NATO was, she responded, "What's NATO?"! This is beyond bizarre.

Another example of a star who will be fading fast is the attractive and charismatic former TV anchor, Kari Lake, who narrowly lost her Arizona Governor's race. She is a rabid election-denier, and in recent speeches has mercilessly trashed the memory of John McCain. And now she has filed a lawsuit asking the court system to throw out the election results! Just totally absurd. I predict her star will fade like the other examples mentioned.

All of the four examples discussed--MacArthur, Trump, Palin, and Lake--are characterized by focusing almost exclusively on what they are against, rather than what they are for. This can be said to be true of the GOP in general these days. It is hard to say what today's Republican party is for (they didn't even bother to adopt a platform in the last election!). We know what they are against, but not what they are for. The electorate will soon come to recognize the lack of any positive substance in today's GOP.

Ranked choice voting worked well in the aforementioned Alaska Congressional race, and should be adopted everywhere as a way to mdoerate our politics and keep the extremists and demogogues out of office. The same holds for open primaries; extremists could be kept out of general elections if states would adopt open primaries. But even liberal Oregon defeated this proposal when it was on the ballot a few years ago. Sadly. it seems that progressives are as determined to hang onto their power as right-wingers are.

I continue to believe that what happened to MacArthur in his later years will be a model for what will happen to Trump, whose speeches during the recent mid-term campaign were filled with airing his personal grievances, rather than offering any coherent vision for the future. Trump would appear at rallies in support of a local candidate, but then would spend most of his speeches talking about himself, not the candidate he was ostensibly there to support.

An election is about the future, not the past, and the voters will, in my opinion, ultimately reject Trump and choose to move forward into the future with new leadership. Already there are signs of this rejection. Florida governor Ron DeSantis won his race for re-election by 20 points, an amazing margin given that his opponent was the highly-respected former governor, Charlie Crist. Recent surveys show that GOP voters already prefer DeSantis to Trump for their presidential candidate in 2024. Other potential candidates are also positioning themselves to oppose Trump, including Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, and Mike Pompeo.

Mike Pence Comes out of the Shadows

On the occasion of the publishing of his new book, Mike Pence has been on the airwaves daily recently. Most notably, he had a "Town Hall" with CNN's Jake Tapper this past Wednesday evening. While he deserves credit for coming onto a live broadcast for more than an hour, there were a number of aspects of his appearance which I found irritating.

1. Repeatedly plugging his book. Instead of simply answering questions, he prefaced nearly every answer with "As I say in my book..." After awhile this beame obnoxious. The in-your-face plugging leads one to wonder if the man is broke.

2. Criticizing the 1/6 committee as biased. Here Pence was way off base. Tapper had to interject and remind Pence that the Democrats had proposed a bi-partisan committee to investigate, but "McCarthy killed it".

3. Not answering questions. The most outrageous example of this was in response to a queston on abortion. Instead of speaking to the substance of the question, which was about a nationwide ban on abortion, Pence gave a speech about how he has reverence for life. He said nothing about why his religious beliefs should apply to the whole country. After this non-answer, I began to realize that there was a non-responsiveness to most of the questions put to him.

4. Testifying. Pence has repeatedly said that "The Committee has no right to my testimony", referring to the 1/6 committee. He has also said his appearance would be "unprecedented", which ignores Gerald Ford's tetimony before a Copngressional committee seeking to put to rest claims that his pardon of Nixon was part of a quid pro quo. It also ignores the role of the Congress in its oversight function of the administrative branch. Pence rants and raves about "separation of powers", failing to understand the oversight role assigned to Congress.

Pence has an image of a dull, drab campaigner, and I don't see any signs that this will change in the coming election cycle. I think a good comparison would be to Dan Quayle, who ran for the GOP nomination in 1996, after losing the 1992 election running with George H.W. Bush. Quayle never got any traction at all, and his campaign went nowhere. Pence wil suffer the same fate if he runs in 2024, as he is clearly considering doing.

Rule by the Best and the Brightest

George Will wrote a thought-provoking column a few months back on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Halberstam book "The Best and the Brightest". Will spends the whole column, up until the last paragraph, outlining the problems with academics trying to govern, which was the problem that got us into the quagmire of Vietnam. Some statements: "academia is an unsatisfactory incubator of statesmen", and "the perils of academic intelligence unleavened by wisdom acquired in the wider world", and "academic careers can make people susceptible to self-deception because they have been socialized in a world of theory in which their ideas have no consequences". But then comes his last paragraph, ending with "the best and the brightest can be tiresome, but the alternative even more so". Much food for thought here. I just finished a new biography of Andrew Jackson entitled "The First Populist", and his story certainly illustrates the dangers of the alternative to rule by the best and the brightest, which is a mindless populism fueled by a strong, charismatic leader. My son-in-law says that we have a kakistocracy, which is rule by the least competent. I can't argue with him.

"The Order", by Daniel Silva

I became aware of Daniel Silva a few months ago, when I heard him being interviewed on the occasion of the publication of his latest spy novel, which I later learned was his 25th novel dating back to 1996, all of which were best-sellers. Checking in the local public library, I was pleased to see that many of these novels were on the shelves, with the rest no doubt available through inter-library loan.

The main character in all but the first three of his novels is Gabriel Allon, the head of Israeli intelligence. In "The Order", Allon is investigating "the order", a shadowy organization composed of authoritarian, anti-democratic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic Catholic priests, in coordination with like-minded figures throughout Europe.

The appeal of Silva's novels is two-fold. One, he takes you to places all over the world, and makes you feel like you are there. And two, he brings in current affairs, basing his plots on what is actually going on in the world. At the end of each novel, he has an "Author's Note", in which he explains what is factual and what is made up, and expresses his concerns based on recent world events. In "The Order", he outdoes himself, with an 11-page "Author's Note".

What is so impactful about "The Order" is the emphasis on the passage from Matthew 27:25, which says that the Jewish people are responsible for the killing of Jesus, supposedly saying, “His blood be upon us, and upon our children”. Silva's idea, which I cannot dispute, is that this passage has been responsible for 2,000 years of the persecution of Jews. And it is a clearly false passage. The idea that some Jew in the crowd might have yelled out "his blood be upon us", is, I suppose, marginally plausible. But to add "and upon our children" is ludicrous. We have to ask, how did this pathetic verse find its way into the Bible?

Atrocious Decision from Tump-appointed Federal Judge

U.S. District Judge from the Southern District of Florida, Aileen M. Cannon, issued a ruling the other day appointing a Special Master to review documents seized by the FBI while executing a search warrant at Donald Trump's Florida home.

The reason this is so outrageous is that the court system has no business injecting itself into an ongoing investigation. Courts don't normally get involved until charges are filed. Up until that time, an investigation is the sole province of the executive branch, as represented by the duly authorized prosecutors and detectives conducting the investigation.

In my experience lawyers who have tried to inject themselves into an investigation in an attempt to influence whether charges are filed have been soundly rebuffed. It is the same princple, which is that the legal system doesn't kick in until charges are filed in court.

This principle is why I see problems with the Miranda Warnings, as mandated by the Supreme Court in the famous Miranda case back in 1966. The first two sentences should be sufficient, informing a suspect that he has a right to remain silent, and that anything he says can be used against him later in court. The last two sentences on the right to an attorney should be dropped, as the function of an attorney doesn't kick in until charges are filed and the case thereby gets into the court system.

All an attorney is going to do during the investigative phase is tell his client not to talk to the police. I much prefer the British system, as illustrated in the many British detective shows available to stream these days. The British tell the suspect, "You have the right to remain silent, although if you fail to mention something that you later rely on in court, your silence can be used against you."

Will Trump Be Prosecuted?

The Justice Department no doubt can make out a case that Trump's taking government documents to his Florida home violated the law. But not all violations of the law are worthy of prosecution. There are many additional factors that need to be taken into account.

Since the FBI raid the Trump camp has offered many explanations and excuses for his actions. So much so that comedians and liberal commentators have had a field day in gleefully reciting all the disparate explanations that have been offered.

However, the problem with a jury trial is that you never know what tangent the jury is going to go off on. All it takes is for a jury to latch onto one of the many defenses Trump would put forth. Hence, the chance of a conviction would be slim, in my opinion, and this has to be a major consideration for the DOJ in considering a prosecution.

I think the Atlanta DA has much more of chance at a successful prosecution for election tampering. This is because the tape of the phone call with the Georgia Secretary of State pretty much makes the case, and it would be hard for a jury not to convict based on this alone. In this phone call, Trump is clearly trying to bully the Sec. of State into falsifying the Georgia election results.

The DOJ has to consider the political fallout from prosecuting Trump. It would accentuate the political divide in this country, and no doubt accelerate the arrival of the coming civil war.

I keep thinking back to Ford's decision to pardon Nixon in 1974, a month after Nixon had resigned his presidency. This decision was undoutedly the correct one, as it spared the country the spectacle of an ex-president being prosecuted, and allowed the country to go forward after Watergate. And yet, Ford probably lost the 1976 election to Carter because of the pardon. How fickle the US electoraste is! They re-elect Nixon in a landslide in 1972, and then go to the other exterme of wanting hiim prosecuted! Surely signs of an incompetent electorate.

Whether the electorate will turn on Trump as it did on Nixon is unclear. The evidence suggests that about 30% of the electorate will remain rabid Trump supporters, and no facts can cause these people to change their allegiance to him. But the remaining 70% will likely be totally disgusted as the evidence comes out about the many crimes this guy has committed.

A Sparkling Benoni

Marvelous play on my part as white against the Benoni Defense.

1. d4 c5 2. d5 d6 3. c4 Nf6 4. Nc3 g6 5. e4 Bg7 6. Nf3 O-O 7. Qc2 a6 8. a4 Bg4 9. Be2 b6 10. h3 Bd7 11. O-O e6 12. Re1 exd5 13. cxd5 Re8 14. Nd2 Bh6 15. Nc4 Bxc1 16. Rexc1 Qc7 17. f4 Bc8 18. Bf3 Nfd7 19. Re1 Bb7 20. e5 dxe5 21. d6 Qc8 22. Bxb7 Qxb7 23. fxe5 b5 24. axb5 axb5 25. Rxa8 Qxa8 26. Nxb5 Qc6 27. Nc7 Rc8 28. e6 fxe6 29. Rxe6 Nf8 30. Re7 Nbd7 31. Qc3 Ne6 32. Nxe6 Black resigns 1-0

Dragon with 9 g4

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. g4 Nxd4 10. Bxd4 Be6 11. O-O-O Qa5 12. Kb1 Rfc8 13. Nd5 Qxd2 14. Nxf6+ Bxf6 15. Rxd2 Bxd4 16. Rxd4 Rc6

16...Rc5 is usual, but my move works out well.

17. Bb5 Rb6 18. Bc4 Bxc4 (Rb4!) 19. Rxc4 Rc6 20. Rxc6 bxc6 21. c4 c5 22. Kc2 Rb8 23. Rd1 Kg7 24. e5 Rb6 25. exd6 Rxd6 26. Rxd6 exd6 27. h4 Kf6 28. f4??

The losing move. 28 Kd3 and it's an equal game.

h5 29. gxh5 gxh5 30. Kd3 Kf5 31. Ke3 Kg4 32. Ke4 Kxh4 33. Kf3 Kh3 34. Kf2 Kg4 And the rest is mop up. 0-1

The Delusional Behavior of Angel Hernandez

Angel Hernandez is a baseball umpire who has sued MLB for discrimination. After getting his case thrown out at the trial court level, he has appealed, claiming that the system for evaluating umpires is inherently biased against minorities.

The thing about Hernandez is that he is universally reviled as the worst umpire in the major leagues. So how does he think he deserves a chance to umpire in a World Series?

His delusional behavior illustrates a common problem in today's world. It is an inability to accept reality, as in Trump's insistence that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him, despite all his aides telling him otherwise.

The second thing this illustrates is the regrettable tendency of people in this country to turn to the court system to obtain redress for every little perceived wrong they have suffered. There are many problems we face in life, and few are solvable through the legal system, whether it be criminal or civil.

In my experience many people who obsess in this way suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. They simply cannot let go of a past perceived injustice and get on with their lives.

A third observation is that the fact that Hernandez is still an MLB umpire illustrates the evil of labor unions. Unions used to have an important role in obtaining dignity for the working person, but today they seem to have little role except to make it next-to-impossible for employers to fire incompetent employees.

The Johnny Depp Verdict

I have a feminist friend who wrote that she considered the Depp verdict to be a setback for women.

I responded that she was reading too much into this one case. The fact is that many jury verdicts are sinply a reflection of which party they like the most. And, sometimes it even depends on which attorney the jury likes the most. In this case, the jury simply liked Depp more than Heard.

This verdict represents a rare instance in which a plaintiff suing for defamation has prevailed. There are many cases in which these suits have backfired, but Depp is now an exception to the general rule.

Another Gruenfeld

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 c5 8. Ne2 O-O 9. O-O Nc6 10. Be3 cxd4 11. cxd4 Na5 12. Bd3 Bg4 13. f3 Be6 14. d5 Bxa1 15. Qxa1 f6 16. Bh6 Re8 17. Kh1 Rc8 18. Nf4 Bd7 19. e5 Nc4 20. e6 Bb5

The usual move here is 20...Ba5, played 40 times in the 365chess database to 12 for 20...Bb5. However, black's 20...Bb5 actually scores slightly better for black than the more usual move (46% to 41%).

21 Nxg6

I played this move, which is the normal response to 20...Ba5. However, this was played in only one of the 12 games with 20...Bb5, with 21 Qe1 played in the other 11 games. After 21 Qe1, the most usual continuation is 21...Nd6 22. Bxg6 hxg6 23. Qg3 Bd3 24. Nxd3 Kh7 25. Nf4 Rg8 26. Qh3 Rh8 27. Bf8 Kg8 28. Bxe7 Qxe7 29. Qxh8 Kxh8 30. Nxg6 Kg7 31. Nxe7 Rc7 32. g4 Rxe7, after which 33 Rc1 drew, but 33 Kg2 lost.

21...hxg6 22 Bxg6 Ne5 23 Be4 Bxf1?

In the only game in the database, black played 23...Qa5, preventing white's Qe1 move, and drew.

24 Qxf1? (21 Qe1) 24...Qa5 (Rc4) 25 Qf2 Kh8??

This is the losing move. Stockfish gives 25...Ng4, giving back material to blunt white's attack.

26 Qh4 Nxf3 27 Bg2+! Black resigns 1-0

About the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard Trial

We have yet another example of someone filing a defamation lawsuit which blows up in his face. History is full of examples of this, some of which I have discussed in this blog.

Amber Heard, Depp's ex-wife, wrote a newspaper commentary about domestic violence, describing herself as a victim. She never mentioned Depp by name, but sophisticated readers could figure out that Depp was who she was talking about.

Depp felt like her essay cost him millions when Disney cut him loose from the "Pirates of the Carribean" franchise, and he sued for $50 million. Heard countersued for $100 million, and now the trial is taking place.

Recent testimony poked huge holes in Depp's narrative, as his former friends and business associates testified to his increasing unreliability, due to his alcohol and drug use. He was habitually late to the set, and in all ways was just plain difficult to deal with. A Disney representative tetified nobody at Disney even knew about the Heard essay when they cut Depp loose.

This illustrates the down side of these defamation lawsuits. Your whole life is opened up to scrutiny, often with devastating effects for the plaintiff. Heard is no angel, but she is certainly not repsonsible for Depp's ruining his career. Neither party will likely get anything out of this public spectacle, other than the eternal embarrassment at having their dirty laundry broadcast to the world.

We Will Be Welcomed with Open Arms: The Folly of Wishful Thinking

I just finished reading "The Zimmerman Telegram", an informative book by Barbara Tuchman explaining in detail the events leading up to the U.S. entering World War One. The author describes the German efforts to enlist Mexico and Japan in making war on the U.S., so as to keep the U.S. armed forces occupied fighting to defend its homeland instead of fighting the Germans. But the factor in the German thinking that is relevant for this post is the idea that there were millions of German-Americans living in the U.S. who would be opposed to their adopted country making war on their homeland. In actuality, once the German plans were revealed by the relase of the infamous Zimmerman telegram, followed by Zimmerman's admission that the telegram was authentic, opposition to the U.S. getting involved in the war evaporated, even among German-Americans.

This got me to thinking about how this type of error has been repeated over and over by invading countries. For example, Russia is currently making war on neighboring Ukraine, with much of the rationale being that Ukraine has many ethnic Russians who would welcome the invasion with open arms. This has proven not to be the case.

The first infamous case of relying on false intelligence was in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which was planned by the CIA based on the false information that the Cuban people would rise up in support of the invaders. This proved not to be the case; in fact, Castro had such good intelligence, in contrast to our bad intelligence, that he knew in advance (and successfully thwarted) every step the CIA was planning, including some two dozen assassination attempts on his life.

The most despicable example of wishful thinking was in the run-up to the 2003 war on Iraq. We now know that this was was based on false information provided by an informant code-named "Curveball". Curveball was a character who defected from Iraq to Germany in 1999, and started provideding German authoriites with information claiming that he had first-hand knowledge of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons. German intelligence was so leery of him that they concluded he was totally untrustworthy, being as he was a congenital liar and an alcoholic. Nevertheless, American and British authorites chose to believe him and invaded Iraq based on this misinformation, ignoring German concerns about his reliability, and never undertaking to verify his information from other sources. Years later Curveball admitted that his information had been totally fabricated, and he claimed to have been totally flabbergasted to discover that the U.S. and Britain were taking his lies seriously.

The whole Vietnam debacle was filled with one example of wishful thinking after another. We went to war to prop up a corrupt South Vietnamese government, a government which never had the support of its people.

An example of a different sort, one in which our president disbelieved intelligence which he should have believed, was Jimmy Carter's huge blunder in letting the former Shah of Iran into this country. Carter was told that letting the Shah into the country would put our embassy in Tehran in jeopardy, but he chose to ignore this intelligence, on the false rationale that there was medical treatment available here that was not available in Mexico. This excuse was later proven to be false when the U.S. doctors spoke up and said that they had been willing to go down to Mexico to treat the Shah, and he could indeed have gotten the same treatment there. This one mistake isn't why I hold Carter in such low esteen, as every president makes mistakes. Rather, this is part of a pattern of total incompetence that characterized Carter's entire bleak term in office.

Creating a Good Trivia Question

One of the joys of being a fan of Jeopardy! is to appreciate the craftmanship that goes into creating a good "Final Jeopardy" clue. The writers have to keep the questions in the middle ground between so easy that everyone gets it immediately, and so hard that no one has any reasonable chance to get it. This is true of any trivia question.

Although none of the three contestants got Thursday's "Final Jeopardy" clue, I was able to figure it out, so I count it as a good clue. The clue was, "It's an Italian word for 'mercy' but also the name of a movie character who kills Stracci and Carlo". An awesome clue, combining as it does some linguistics knowledge with some movie knowledge.

I initially had no idea, but then I recognized Carlo as Connie's husband on "The Godfather", and then it hit me that the name "Clemenza", one of the Corleone lieutenants, might be related in Italian to "mercy", based on "clemency". I didn't recognize "Stracci" from the movie, but now I see that he was the leader of one of the five families who Don Corleone brought together for the famous meeting to stop the war and make peace.

About the Infamous Leak from the Supreme Court

The leak of the draft opinion overruling Roe. vs. Wade raises many interesting issues. One is about the perceived necessity for such overwhelming secrecy over the operation of the Court. The other two branches of government operate in the open, as mandated by open meetings laws, sunshine laws, Freedom of Information laws, and the like. But the Court thinks that it is horribly wrong to have a draft opinion leak out. Why? It makes no sense. The American people deserve to know more about how the Court operates, so that we can make more informed decisions about our political future.

Another key issue is the identity of the leaker. The Republicans have focused on this, and have been reluctant to talk about the substantive issues involved, which is reminiscent of their silly posturing during the first Trump impeachment, when they whined and whined about who the whistleblower was, a totally irrelvant complaint since the whistleblower's allegations had been verified many times over by other witnesses.

The right wing asumes the leaker was from the left; when Ted Cruz was asked why he assumed this, he answered, "Because I'm not a moron!" However, the prevailing opinion now is that the leak probably came from the right. The theory goes that this draft was circulated back in February, and in the three months since then Chief Justice Roberts has been lobbying his fellow conservatives to take a more moderate course. Given Roberts' concern for the reputation of the Court, this is certainly what has been going on since the draft was first circulated. Alito's draft opinion is ridiculously inflammatory and derogatory toward the original opinion in Roe v. Wade. There is no doubt that Roberts is committed to moving the Court away from this extreme position toward a more moderate and nuanced opinion, in his ongoing efforts to salvage the integrity of the Court. In response, the extremists on the right are trying to "lock in" the five who originally suported this extreme draft, hence the leak, which some think might have come from Alito himself, who is upset that his original supporters are deserting him.

The Repubicans are clearly running scared, because in a post-Roe world, they will be on the defensive, given that 2/3 of Americans support the idea of a woman's right to choose. The fallout wil be beneficial to the Democrats in the upcoming mid-term elections, in my humble opinion.

Overruling Roe will take the issue of abortion out of the legal arena, and put it back into the political arena. The GOP will be in the position of the dog finally catching the car that it has been chasing. The GOP has now caught the car, and it will only be embarrassing for them when their autocratic position becomes painfully obvious. They think the government should make our personal lifestyle decisions for us, and this autocratic approach will hopefully be rejected. If not, then we don't deserve the liberty-based republic that our Founders have so carefully crafted for us.

The Greatest Episode of "The Crown"

I recently re-watched my favorite episode, which was a Season 3 episode entitled "Margaretology". In this episode Margaret and her husband are touring the U.S., and the people are showering Margaret with adulation. When Queen Elizabeth hewars of this, she gets an unforgtettable look on her face, a look of surprise and wistful envy, as she herself is considered dull and uninspiring by comparison.

At the same time, Britain is facing a serious crisis with its currency. To prevent devaluation, Britain desperately needs financial help from the U.S., now led by LBJ after the death of JFK. The Queen tries everything to get Johnson's cooperation, but nothing works. She even offers to host Johnson at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, an honor never extended to Kennedy. Still Johnson resists, dismissing the offer with a caustic remark about why anyone would want to go hunting in the cold and windy Scotland weather.

Finally the QWueen calls Maragaret and asks her to visit the White House to try to win Johnson over. When Margaret resists, saying she has promised to be with her husband during his photography exhibit in New York at that time, the Queen makes it clear it is not a request, but a royal order.

Margaret does of course go to the White House, and is a huge hit with President Johnson. When she makes an anti-Kennedy remark during the banquet, the room goes silent, until Johnson relieves the tension with a supportive remark. The bond between the two is made clear here, in that they both know what it is like to live in the shadow of another.

After dinner they engage in a "dirty limerick" contest. This was so memorable that I wll quote Margaret's limericks. "There was a young lady from Dallas/ Who used a dynamite stick as a phallus/ They found her vagina/ In North Carolina/ And her asshole in Buckingham Palace." Also, "There was a young woman from Delaware/ Who liked to make love in her underwear/ A terrible prude/ She woud never go nude/ And her baer hips and tits she would never bare."

When Maragaret returns to London following her triumphant tour, she suggests to Elizabeth that she, Margaret, should take on more royal duties. Elizabeth talks this over with her husband, who counsels against it. When Elizabeth informs Margaret that she won't share her duties, the disappointed look on Margaret's face tells the whole story, with no words needed. These two actresses really shine in this episode, Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret, and Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth.

A Benko Gambit

Here is a recent game played on chessbase againt a higher-rated player. It illustrates how white needs to play against the Benko, which is to always be on the alert to defend against black's queen-side pressure. The problem for white is that if black gains back his gambit pawn, he almost always gets the better game. So caution is essential for white.

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5 4. cxb5 a6 5. e3 I continue to believe in this move as the best for white. To me black's best reponse is now 5...axb5, but my opponent chooses a different path.

5...g6 6. bxa6 Bxa6 7. Bxa6 Nxa6 8. Nf3 d6 9. Nc3 Bg7 10. O-O O-O 11. Nd2 Qc7 12. Nc4 Rfb8 13. Qe2 Nb4 14. Rd1 Qb7 15. e4 Nd7 16. Kf1 Stockfish doesn't like this move, claiming that white has now lost his advantage. However, the important thing is to have a coherent plan, and I felt like this fit in with my ideas of how to best defend against black's queen-side pressure. The computer simply does not appreciate how helpful white's king will be if and when he can get to the c2 square.

16...Qa6 17. Bg5! f6 18. Be3 Nb6 19. Nxb6 Qxe2+ 20. Kxe2 Rxb6 21. a3 Nc2 22. Ra2 Nxe3 23. Kxe3 Rab8 24. Rd2 I have successfully defended my weak pawn on b2, and now white's plan is obvious: push the passed a-pawn! Stockfish has now restored my half-point advantage, black's problem being that his 17th move blocked in his bishop.

24...Rb3 25. Kd3 f5 26. f3 Bd4 27. a4 Bg1 28. h3 Rc8 29. Kc2 c4 30. a5 Ba7 31. a6 Rcb8 32. g4 f4 33. h4 h6 34. h5 g5 My concept has now become clear. I have fixed all but one of his pawns on dark squares, and all but one of my own pawns on light squares. In this type of position, my knight is hugely better than his woeful bishop. Plus, I still have my extra pawn.

35 Rd1! The start of an inspired plan to reposition this rook to b1, thereby freeing up my other rook to go to a4. Note that this rook maneuvering would not be possible if my king hadn't gone over to the queen-side to help out in guarding the b2 pawn.

35...Kg7 36. Rb1 Kf6 37. Ra4! Rc8? (R3b6) 38. Rxc4! Rxc4 (Rxc2+) 39. Kxb3 Rc8 Black's position has completely collapsed. The rest is mop-up.

40. Ra1 Ke5 41. Ra4 Rb8+ 42. Rb4 Rc8 43. Rb7 Rb8 44. Rxb8 Bxb8 45. Nb5 e6 46. dxe6 Kxe6 47. a7 Bxa7 48. Nxa7 and black soon resigned. 1-0

Emerson famously said that "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", while Oscar Wilde followed this up with "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative". However, my point here is that in chess it is important to play with a plan. Not that you shouldn't periodically re-evaluate your plan, but to play without any plan at all is so bad that it is contemptuously called "swimming".

Why the Adulation of Tiger Woods?

I watched Tiger over the weekend at The Masters and am fascinated by his amazing comeback, while at the same time being a bit befuddled by all the attention paid to him by the media. The answer to why this attention is simple: we the public are interested in Tiger. I had never even heard of the eventual winner (and supposed #1-ranked player in the world) before this weekend. There simply is nobody else who I and many others want to watch other then Tiger, hence the media gives us what we want.

The real question here is why we Americans idolize our sports heroes so much. Golfer Ben Hogan had a ticker-tape parade for him in 1953 after, like Tiger, coming back to play golf following a near-fatal car accident, in which his car had a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus which was trying to pass another vehicle on the two-lane highway (and many thanks to President Eisenhower for his vision in creating the interstate highway system).

I see no Nobel Prize winners on the ticker-tape parade list, nor anyone who has distinguished himself/herself in the arts, literature, or the sciences. Nor are any of these fields represented on our coins and currency.

Compare this to Australia, which on its currency has a poet (Banjo Paterson), a businesswoman (Mary Reibey), a social reformer (Edith Cowan), a minister (John Flynn), a writer (Mary Gilmore), an opera singer (Nellie Melba), and two Aborigines (Gwoya Tjungurrayi and David Unaipon). The contrast between the values of that culture and ours could not be more stark.

The people on the seven denominations of U.S. currency still in circulation are all from the world of politics. And even more striking, four of the seven are known for their war "exploits"--Washington, Jackson, Grant, and Lincoln. As a people we venerate our war heroes and our sports heroes, rather than those people making actual positive contributions to society.

MLB Predictions for 2022

After a stress-filled offseason, Major Leaguie Baseball is set to open the season this week, so here are my annual predictions.

AL East: Rays, Blue Jays, Yankees, Red Sox Orioles

This divison is hard to predict, for there are four teams with the potential to win it all. The poundits are picking the Blue Jays to win it, due to some high-profile free agent signings. My approach is to mistrust these free agent signings, since the pressure on these guys is so great that in their first season with their new teams they often fail miserably. I have no great love for the Rays, but they are a team which consistently over-performs its roster. The Yankees have their usual turmoil, this time with players who refuse to be vaccinated.

AL Central: White Sox, Twins, Guardians, Tigers, Royals.

Not much controversy here. The pundits tend to prefer the Tigers for third, but I have to go with my home-state Guardians.

AL West: Astros, Mariners, Angels, A's, Rangers

The Mariners are one of my favorite teams, due to the awesome setting of their stadium in downtown Seattle. I am predicting they will nose out the Angels for second. The pundits all have the rebuilding A's last, but they are a team which has consistently out-performed its roster, so I am betting they will nose out the Rangers for fourth.

NL East: Braves, Phillies, Mets, Marlins, Nationals

The pundits pick the Mets for second, but I am dubious. There seems to be no coherency to this organization. It throws money at free agents, rather than having a clear plan for building a winning organization. And its pitchers have been notoriously brittle in recent years. The Nationals have disappointed me for years, seemingly wasting what should have been their golden years. Now, their time has come and gone, and I am rooting for the Marlins to at least finish fourth.

NL Central: Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Reds, Pirates

I asm proud of correctly predicting last year that my home-state Reds would beat out the fading Cubs for fourth, but the Reds are shedding payroll and will drop back to fourth this year. The Cardinals are one of those teams that often over-perform their roster, aided by the best fan base in baseball, but I have to go with the Brewers for first. They have been learning how to win and buildig up their dominance in recent years, and I look forward to their upcoming success this year.

NL West: Dodgers, Padres, Giants, Rockies, Diamondbacks

I have a soft spot in my heart for the Padres, hence I'm picking them for second over the Giants. Same with the Rockies over the D-Backs for fourth.

An Eventful Gruenfeld

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Ne2 c5 9. O-O cxd4 10. cxd4 Nc6 11. Be3 Bg4 12. f3 Na5 13. Bd3 Be6 14. d5 Bxa1 15. Qxa1 f6 16. Bh6 Re8 17. Rd1 Usual is 17. Kh1 Rc8 18. Nf4 Bd7 19. e5 Nc4 20. e6 Ba4 21. Nxg6 hxg6 22. Bxg6, with white sacrificing a rook for pressure on black's now-vulnerable king. I was disappointed not to get a chance to play this line. White's move, 17 Rd1, only has one game in the 365chess database.

17...Bd7 18. Qd4 a6 19. h4 Rc8 20. Qf2 b5 21. h5 Kf7? Here I was worried about defending the g6 square. Stockfish says that 22 e5! would now give white a 3-point advanrage; however, white misses this move, making it a double blunder.

22. Qg3? Rg8 23. e5 fxe5 24. hxg6+ hxg6 25. Qxe5 Qc7 26. Qg5 Nc4 27. Nf4 Ne5 (Qb6+) 28. Be4 (d6) Qd6 29. Qg3 Qf6 30. Bg5 Qb6+ 31. Kf1 Nc4 32. Ne6 Bxe6? Stockfish gives 32...Nd3+ as being equal.

33. dxe6+ Kg7 34. Bxe7? White wins with 34 Bh6+ Kxh6 35.Qh4+ Kg7 36.Qxe7+ Kh8 37.Qh4+ Kg7 38.Rd7+ Kf8 39.Qe7#

34...Ne3+?? (34...Qxe3=) 35. Ke2 Nxd1 36. Qxg6+ Kh8 37 Qh7# 1-0

Chris Cuomo's Lawsuit

So Chris Cuomo has filed a $125 million lawsuit against CNN for wrongful termination. The reasons for his firing have to do with his getting involved in his brother's sexual harassment crisis.

In looking at the lawsuit in detail, we see that only $15 million is actually for wrongful termination, that being the amount still due Chris under his contract. The remaining $110 million is for “future wages lost as a result of CNN’s efforts to destroy his reputation", to quote his attorney.

In other words, the remaining $110 million is a claim that CNN has defamed Chris. We have already seen in other ill-fated lawsuits how futile it is for a public figure to win a defamation case. Chris Cuomo will have no better luck here than the other public figures who have wasted the time of the judicial system since the Supreme Court issued its 1964 opinion requiring that a public figure plaintiff must show malice to prevail.

"Live by the Sword", by Gus Russo

If you only read one book about the JFK assassination, it should be this one. The author has spent the bulk of his adult life actively researching everything about this horrific event, including talking to numerous witnesses about Oswald's life, and describing how the JFK administration waged a secret war against Castro.

What emerges is a definitive account of the whole sordid affair, much more accurate than the Warren Commission report. The reasons for this greater accuracy have to do with the passage of 35 years from the assassination to the 1998 publication of this book. During this period, many documents which were withheld fron the Warren Commission have been released, and many witnesses who previously kept silent have since opened up about the events in question.

Another factor is that Robert Kennedy and the other surviving members of the Kennedy Administration were anxious to preserve the Kennedy legacy. Delving into the reasons for the assassination, which have to do with JFK's secret war against Castro, would expose the ugly truth of that secret war, involving numerous assassination attempts, undertaken by the CIA at the direction of the White House.

Another reason for the cover-up was President Johnson's desire to avoid World War Three. For example, when the Dallas DA drafted the indictment charging Oswald with killing Officer Tippit, he blamed it on a "Communist conspiracy". Johnson called the DA in a rage, saying, "What are you trying to do, start World War Three". The reference to Communism was promptly deleted from the deocument. For similar reasons, all of the damning evidence of Oswald's associations with Cuban and Soviet figures just prior to the assassinatin was suppressed.

Obviously, it was important to present this tragedy as caused by Oswald, acting alone, and so this is what the Warren Commission concluded. Subsequent investigations have uncovered mcuh more of the relevant details. For example, the Church Committee in the mid-'70s investigated in detail the CIA's involvement in assassination plots against foreign leaders, including, of course, Castro. Also, the JFK Act of 1992 required that all documents related to the asassination be transmitted to the Naitonal Archives.

The book describes Oswald's pathetic life, from growing up with an uncaring, dysfunctional mother, to joining the Marines to get away from his mother, to moving to the Soviet Union and renouncing his U.S. citizenship, to returning to the U.S. and getting involved in pro-Castro activities during his time spent in New Orleans. The author does not cite evidence that Oswald was in direct contact with Castro, but he concludes that the evidence strongly suggests that there was some contact between Oswald and Cuban authorities. Also, Castro's intelligence-gathering was so effective that he knew of every one of the numerous assassination plots in detail. His agents had infiltrated the anti-Castro forces and would report back to Castro on what was being planned. Thus, it makes sense that Castro would want JFK dead, and he was on record as making comments to that effect, comments which Oswald was aware of.

The Kennedy brothers, especially Ropbert, were obsessed with gettign rid of Castro. The group in charge of this effort, known as Operaston Mongoose, was led by Robert Kennedy, who was so obsessed that he required the members of the group to meet in his office every morning at 10:00 A.M. to report to him on progress toward eliminating Castro. Naturally, Bobby had to wonder afterwards whether his Castro obsession made him indirectly responsible for his brother's death.

The efforts to limit the investigation started very soon after the president's death. Nicolas Katzenback, who was Bobby's right-hand man and who was de facto in charge of the Justice Departmenmt while Bobby was in seclusion following his brother's death, issued a memo to the White House stating, "The public must be convinced that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who were still at large...Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off." A similar message came from Dean Rusk's State Department. The pressure to tie the hands of investigators came from all sides, though for varying reasons. The White House wanted to avoid World War Three, while the Kennedy family wanted to preserve the reputation of the slain president. Now, with the passage of time, we have a fulloer picture, not the whole picture, because many documents have never been uncovered, but much more complete than that presented by the flawed Warren Commission report.

The whole sordid business of assassinating or deposing foreign leaders was begun unbder Eisenhower, with Guatelama, in whyich the CIA depsoed in 1953 the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz, Iran, in which the CIA deposed democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, and Lumumba in the Congo in 1961 (an assassination ordered directly by Ike in January, just prior to leaving office). These despicable efforts continued under JFK with the Dominican Republic in 1961, Iraq in 1963 and South Vietnam in 1963. And they contineud under both Johnson and Nixon, until Gerald Ford in the mid-1990s signed an executive order prohibiting such activity by all federal employees.

Another lesson to be learned from the history presented by Russo is the folly of failing to help third-wprd countries in need, thereby throwing them into the Soviet camp. For example, Castro visited Washington to enlist aid from Ike in April of 1959, but Ike refused to even meet with him! Similarly, Edyopt's Anwar Sadat requested help in 1954 to build the Aswan Dam, but Ike refused, thereby forcing Egypt to obtain help from the Soviet Union, and leading to the 1956 Suez Crisis.

And now, as we face the crisis of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have the prospect of another Cold War (or maybe, this time, a hot one). Let's hope we handle this one with more wisdom and good sense than we handled the last one!

Anticipating the Super Bowl

I don't claim to be a big football fan, but I do enjoy watching the NFL, especially at playoff time. The 2022 playoff cycle has been particularly entertaining and exciting. Here is my recap.

Wild Card Weekend.The Bengals won 26-19 over the Raiders, but not before the drama of the Raiders having the ball on the Bengals 9-yard line woth 12 seconds left, only to have the Raiders' QB throw an interception.

Bills 47-17 over the Patriots. Very heartening result to me, for two reasons: One, the Patriots coach Bill Belichek is one of the most despicable characters in the NFL, someone with absolutely no personality, and someone who has twice been caught in illegalities, for taping opponents' defensive signals, and for deflating footballs. The second reason is that the Bills gave an NFL berth to my childhood hero, Elbert Dubenion, who played at Bluffton College, in my hometown, and went on to an awesome NFL career, even though he was already 27 years old when he got started (he had been in the military before college).

Chiefs 42-21 over the Steelers. The Chiefs clobbered the Steelers, giving me great joy for two reasons. One, I lived in Kansas for many years and became a fan of the Chiefs. Two, the Steelers' QB, Ben Rothlisberger, is a two-time rapist who has no moral character whatsoever. Wishing him a useless retirement, even though his hometown in Ohio is only 17 miles from mine.

Divisional Round. The Bengals won 19-16 over the Titans. QB Joe Burrow got sacked an incredible nine times(!), but he kept his poise and engineered a last-minte drive that ended in a winning field goal as time ran out.

49ers 13-10 over the Packers. As in the Bengals game, the niners won it with a field goal as time expired. The niners special teams play waas the highight of this game, with a blocked field goal and a blocked punt. Special teams players are often overlooked, so it is gratifying to see them get the credit they deserve in this game. Both the Bengals and 49ers wins are noteworthy in that the #1-seeded team lost, despite having the advantage of a wild card round bye.

Rams 30-27 over the Buccaneers. The Bucs came back from a 27-3 deficit to tie the game at 27 in the 4th quarter. The Rams then won with a miraculous 44-yard pass with 10 seconds left, putting them in field goal range, and their kicker connected for the 3-point win. Good riddance to the cheating Bucs quarterback, Tom Brady, who announced his retirement a few days after this game.

Chiefs 42-36 over the Bills. This is the only game whose result I didn't wholeheartedly support. I was torn between these two teams, rooting for the Bills only because they have never won a Super Bowl, unlike the Chiefs. This game has been aptly called the greatest game every played. The Bills went ahead by three with only 13 seconds left, and the game seemed to be over. However, the Bills kicker kicked the kickoff into the end zone, resulting in the Chiefs getting the ball on the 25-yeard line with 13 seconds still left. Commentators thought he should have kicked it short, forcing a runback to taske time off the clock. In two plays, QB Patrick Mahomes took the Chiefs into field goal range, and the kicker came through to tie up the game.

In overtime, the Chiefs won the coin flip and scored the winning touchdown, without the Bills ever having a chance to score. This odd sudden death rule has been roundly criticized, and shoud be tweaked before next season begins!

Championship Sunday. Bengals over the Chiefs, 27-24. The Bengals came back from 18 points down to send the game into overtime. QB Joe Burrow came though in the clutch, as did kicker Evan McPherson, who hit four field goals.

Rams 20-17 over the 49ers. The Rams trailed by 10 points in the 4th quarter, but came back to shock the niners.

So, the Super Bowl will feature the Rams, led by QB Matthew Stafford, vs. the Bengals, led by QB Joe Burrow.

The Sarah Palin Defamation Suit

This case went to trial today in a New York federal court. I hadn't heard of it until last week when it was delayed due to Palin testing positive for CoVid, but it strikes me as a significant case which deserves greater publicity.

Based on the 1964 standard, under which public figures must show actual malice to prevail, it seems certain that Palin will lose in the trial court. However, it is likely that she will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could then revise the standard enunciated in 1964. Two justices have already indicated a desire to do so.

The absence of malice is evident from the fact that the Times immediately retracted its editorial statement that Palin's PAC had "incited" the shooting of congresswoman Gabby Giffords.

The case was originally thrown out by the trial judge on the basis that Palin's petition stated no actionable claim. However, the appeals court reinstated it on procedural grounds, and now it is going to trial. It is noteworthy that the appeals court expressed no opinion on the merits of the case, and in fact pointed out that Palin has a high bar to surmount in order to prevail.

Palin's case is so laughably weak that one hardly knows where to begin. She is clearly a public figure, and a controversial one at that. Her PAC did in fact publish a map with crosshairs on 20 Congressional Districts. The only problem was that the Times editorial said that this map "incited" the crazed gunman who shot Gabby Giffords.

Within hours of the publication of the editorial, the Internet blew up with criticism, because there was no evidence that the gunman had ever seen the map. The Times immediately issued a correction and apology, within hours of the publication. This obviously negates any "actual malice", or "reckless disregard" of the truth.

Palin claims she has suffered damages because her "budding career" as a political commentator was derailed. The facts are that her so-called budding career was ended two years before, in 2015, when FOX News terminated her contract as a political commentator. She has suffered no damages, and cannot prove otherwise. Her attorneys are simply going through the motions at this point, anxious to get this whole fiasco over with, and probably disappointed that their case wasn't thrown out prior to trial.

It is hard to understand why any public figure still feels compelled to sue for libel in the post-1964 era. I can think of no such case that has succeeded. Spectacular failures include William Westmoreland's case againt CBS, and Ariel Sharon's case against Time magazine. The idea here is that if a falsehood is said against a public figure, that person has the ability to correct the record immediately with a press conference. That's what it means to be a public figure!

Changing my Mind on the Electoral College

I have previously expressed the opinion that we don't need to abolish the Electoral College. Because of recent developments, I have now concluded it should be abolished.

As relentlessly reported by Rachel Maddow on her nightly show, there was a concerted attempt to present phony slates of electors from seven states. What Rachel did was to show every night on the screen the documents sent in from the seven states, all of which had the same wording, spacing, and fonts. Her point was that there was obviously a nationally-coordinated attempt to subvert the election results. And now, as of this past week, we know that the attempt was engineered by Trump campaign operatives, coordinated by Rudy Guiliani. Kudos to Maddow for shining a light on this issue.

This chicanery is properly the subject of criminal charges on the national level, since it was planned and coordinated on the national level. Several Attorneys General have weighed in saying that state laws were clearly violated by the attempted forgeries, but that they will defer to the Dept. of Justice for federal charges. Unfortunately, Merrick Garland seems too timid to pursue this. We definitely need an AG who has some energy.

What the Electoral College does is to insert an additional, and unnecessary, step in the process, a step which is ripe for abuse by corrupt actors. We just don't need it anymore, in an era in which personal character no longer seems to matter.

We live in exciting times. Rarely does one get to be on hand to witness the demise of a 250-year-old democracy. I can't help but think of the great foreign correspondent, William Shirer, who was on hand in Germany in the 1930s to witness first-hand the rise of Naziism in Germany, and who wrote so informatively about it. His books are among my favorites.

I am fascinated by the famous study which concluded that the average age of great nations is 250 years, given that the U.S. reaches the 250-year mark in just four years. Actually, the study uses the term "empire", rather than "great nations". But when I use the term empire, someone will inevitably object to calling the U.S. an empire. I think the term can be defended; after all, what was the Monroe Doctrine other than a statement of empire? Nevertheless, this gets us off into an annoying tangent, distracting from the issue at hand. So, I choose to use the term "great nation" instead.

A King's Indian

Here is a 10-minute game I played yesterday on chessbase as white against a higher-rated player. The game illustrates my tendency to avoid complicated middlegames, in favor of steering the game into an endgame which I can better understand.

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f3 O-O 6. Be3 e5 7. d5 Nbd7 8. Qd2 Ne8 9. Bd3 f5 10. exf5 My pet move. White will inevitably push his f-pawn to f4, after which I will have a great square at e4 to operate from with my pieces. The remarkable thing about this game is that this advantage extends to a king-and-pawn endgame, in which it is my king which gets to e4 with strong effectiveness.

10...gxf5 11. Bg5 Ndf6 12. Nge2 Qe7 13. O-O-O Qf7 14. Qc2 Qg6 15. Bd2 Nh5? 16. g4 Nf4 17. Nxf4 exf4 18. gxf5 Bxf5 19. Bxf5 Qxf5 20. Qxf5 Rxf5 21. Rhg1 Kh8 22. Rg4 Be5 23. Rdg1 Nf6 24. Rg5 Rxg5 25. Rxg5 Rg8 26. Rxg8+ Kxg8 27. Ne2 Nh5 28. b3 Kf7 29. Kc2 Kf6 30. Kd3 Kf5 31. Nd4+ An odd choice for me, as I usually prefer the knight side of the B vs. N ending. Stockfish now has it even.

31...Bxd4 32. Kxd4 Nf6 33. Bc3 Nd7 34. Kd3 Ne5+ 35. Bxe5 Kxe5 Going into a pawn ending. My goal is obviously to get my king to e4.

36. b4 b6 37. a4 a6 38. Kc3 h5? This move gives me some winning chances, as I will win his pawn on f4.

39. h4! a5 40. bxa5 bxa5 41. Kd3 Kf5 42. Kd4 Kf6 43. Ke4 Kg6 44. Kxf4 Kf6 45. Ke4 Kg6 46. f4 Kf6 47. f5 Kf7 48. Kf3 Kf6?? Now I can get the opposition, which gives me the win. There seems to be no way for white to make progress if black keeps his king off f6 (unless and until I play my own king to f4).

49. Kf4 Kf7 50. Kg5 Kg7 51. Kxh5 And now the win is easy. 1-0 in 62 moves.

The English Opening

A game played today on chessbase.

1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 c5 3. g3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. Bg2 Nc7 Initiating my pet line against the English. 5...Nxc3 would give white too strong of a center.

6. Nf3 Nc6 7. e3? This gives black a healthy half-point advantage. Normal is 7 d3.

7...e5 8. O-O Be7 9. a3 O-O 10. Ne2 Rb8 11. b3 b6 12. Bb2 f6 13. d4 exd4 14. exd4 cxd4 15. Nfxd4 Nxd4 16. Nxd4 Bb7 17. Bxb7 Rxb7 18. Qf3 Qd5 19. Qe2 Bc5 20. Rad1 Re8 21. Qc4 Qxc4 22. bxc4 Ne6 23. Nf3 Rbe7 24. Rfe1 Kf7 25. a4 Nc7 (Bb4) 26. Rxe7+ Rxe7 27. Re1 Rxe1+ 28. Nxe1 Ke6 29. Nd3 Kf5 30. Nxc5 bxc5 31. f3 Ne6 32. Kf2 Nd8 33. Ke3 Ke6 34. f4 g6 35. g4 f5 36. h3 fxg4 37. hxg4 h5? My idea here was to get the outside passed pawn. However, as we shall see, black has a good counter to this plan.

38. gxh5? Here white could have played 38 f5+, gaining a healthy advantage.

38...gxh5 39. Bc3 Kf5 40. Kf3 h4 41. Be5 Nc6 42. Bd6 Nd4+ 43. Kg2 Ne6 44. Kh3 Nxf4+ 45. Kxh4 Nd3 46. a5 a6 47. Kg3 Ke4 48. Kg4 Kd4 49. Kf3 Kxc4 50. Ke4 Nb4 51. Be7 Nc6 52. Bd8 Nxd8 0-1